Review: “Iron Man”


One cool comic book superhero epic movie.

I didn’t (and still don’t) spend much time reading comics as a kid, but I watched all the cartoons--including the bad ones. Even though Iron Man doesn’t have the same iconic recognition as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Spiderman, the X-Men, etc., I knew who he was.

From what I’m told, he started out in Marvel Comics in 1963 as an anti-communist hero, then moved on to fighting evil in general. Unlike most other heroes, he’s not from another planet nor did he get his powers from magic or genetic mutation. He’s self-made from American technological know-how.

His alter ego, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), is a playboy billionaire weapons manufacturer and genius inventor modeled after Howard Hughes. After watching this film, I wished I had an aptitude for pushing technological boundaries.

Downey, while not the prototypical actor for a comic book superhero (which usually goes to young heartthrobs) is an actor of intelligence who draws from his own checkered past to initially play Tony Stark as a boozing, womanizing genius. Stark runs Stark Industries, the company he inherited from his father and the world's leading weapons manufacturer. Life is good. He blithely glosses over the death and destruction in which his company plays a major role. “They say the best weapon is one you never have to fire,” he says before demonstrating his latest missile, the Jericho. “I prefer the weapon you only need to fire once.” Downey delivers a knockout performance that by itself is worth the price of admission to watch. Fortunately, I got in at $7.95 with a student ID--and saw it twice on opening day.

“Iron Man” starts in the present, or recent past. With superb direction from an unlikely Jon Favreau (“Made,” “Elf,” and “Zathura,” none of which I saw), the movie opens in Afghanistan. There, Tony Stark displays his Jericho missile system for top US military and allied Arab brass. The Jericho test firing demolishes half a mountain, insuring big orders on his latest product of mass destruction. Afghan guerrilla insurgents, using Stark-issue military spec, then capture Stark and wipe out his Air Force escort.

Seriously wounded with shrapnel in his chest, Stark is brought to a cave where the gun-toting insurgents have set up shop. A Gandhi-like Yinsen (Shaun Toub), saves Stark with beyond next generation heart surgical skills. Yinsen implants a cylindrical electromagnet into Stark’s chest that keeps the shrapnel in his from reaching his ticker and other vital organs, resulting in instant flatline. Once Stark is saved, the insurgent leader, a chrome-domed thug named Raza (Faran Tahir), wants Stark to build him another Jericho missile.

Or else.

Under closed circuit surveillance, Stark doesn’t build a missile, but a miniature Ark reactor (fusion?) to power his chest electromagnet and an armor suit with mechanical arms and legs, and a weapons system featuring Gatling guns, flamethrowers, and missile launchers that fire out of his arms. Topping it off is an iron mask that’s a cross between a welder’s helmet and a goalie mask. When the amazingly stupid insurgents do catch on, it’s too late. Yinsen sacrifices himself to buy Stark time to power up his MacGyvered suit, which he uses to blast their camp to smithereens and fly--sort of--out of harm’s way.

Stark returns from three months in captivity a changed man. He's seen the horrors he has helped perpetrate. No more weapons manufacturing for Stark Industries, he says. Against the wishes of his ambitious No. 2, Obadiah Stane (a bald and bearded Jeff Bridges), Stark sets a new agenda of redemption and keeping the world safe from his weapons, aided by his trusted assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow with red hair) with whom he shares a budding romance and his best friend, U.S. Air Force Col. Jim “Rhodey” Rhodes (Terrence Howard). Everyone thinks he’s lost his mind, though.

The pieces of the first Iron Man lie in the Afghanistan desert, soon to be reassembled by Raza’s insurgents. Meanwhile the suddenly pacifistic Stark rebuilds a new and improved Iron Man suit (amid several funny snafus in the trial stage) , sleek red and yellow and looking like a 1952 Buick Roadmaster. As he pushes ahead with his quest for redemption, Stark uncovers a diabolical plot against him set in motion by a hidden enemy and makes full use of his new gold titanium plated alter-ego.

Despite being worked over by four screenwriters, the story is smart (though the insurgents could use more development), the dialogue features witty lines mostly from Downey, and the CGI is first rate with viewers hard pressed to tell where the effects end and a real suit is brought in.

For all the effects, Favreau thankfully doesn’t forget the man in “Iron Man.” A mark of his indie roots. Though brilliant and rich, Stark is a man with “character defects,” as he himself puts it. His enemies are men, too, corporate raiders and militants living in caves in the Middle East. This might be the most relevant superhero tale we have yet seen.

"Iron Man" is by far the highest profile outing for both Favreau and Downey. Downey, who was once uninsurable, has led a career much like Johnny Depp's--acclaimed for quirky roles in interesting movies, but never breaking through as a draw at the box office. “Iron Man” could be his “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

Compared to other recent superhero movies, I’d say “Iron Man” is a notch below “Batman Begins” (the reigning king of comic superhero movies), but on par with the second installments in the “X-Men” and “Spider-Man” franchises. With a few developments hinted at, like Iron Man’s partner, War Machine, and a big bad (he wears ten rings), the pieces have been set for a hopefully stellar sequel in, I believe April 2010.